It was recently announced that President Obama plans to raise $1 billion to build his presidential library in Chicago. By any standard, that’s an eye-popping figure. It’s nearly as much as Obama spent on his 2012 campaign for president.
In the Chicago Tribune, Dan McGinn has a column that’s well worth your time. It puts the $1 billion figure in historical perspective:
While the academic study of presidents is important, it’s not this important. And spending this much on a facility to house the records of a man who was more or less the least transparent president in modern history, combined with the fact that the ambitious and controversial plans for the library involve destroying a good deal of rare and precious greenspace in a black working class neighborhood in Chicago … well, the irony abounds.
Obama is undoubtedly good at raising money. It would be nice if he put that skill to better use than building and endowing such a needlessly expensive library.
